Sweet Rose and Wilde
by Clar the Pirate
Summary: Rose and Rose live in a tower which is not particularly tall, though Rose does sleep in the highest room. Oscar visits them there.
1. Rose

Dear Rose,

This is silly and well I know it. I also know you would have no reluctance in telling me so – and in stronger terms – if you ever saw this letter. Which is why, love, you shall never have the privilege of reading it.

But doesn't not sending a letter defeat the purpose of writing it? Probably. I've just always thought of diaries as watery and pointless or egotistical and self pandering; thus am tediously attempting to avoid the appearance of writing one.

– I hope you noticed what I did there and if you didn't, stop complaining how you never win our games –

I need order. Order and systematic putting-down-ness, because something stupendous has happened. Yes, stupendous. My head is so tiresomely full with the same thoughts running round and round I _have_ to write them down to make room for new ones. Or else I will likely explode, and it will be horribly messy, and you know how you hate cleaning; so please bear with me, Rose. It's not going to be some great epistle documenting circumstances for the sake of posterity. I just need to be able to breathe again.

I'm justifying why you should read something I refuse to ever let you read, _that's_ what a bad state I'm in.

It is, as you may have guessed, the evening of the day of Oscar's first visit. I say first in the fervent hope that it is the first and will be followed by the second and the third and many others. Not the only lonely one. I so hope.

Now, you will recount the infamous (already though it only happened this morning) Encounter in the Kitchen and regret o so remorsefully that I was upstairs, but I'll have you know I saw him first. While you were clattering away over your raspberry tarts, I was ensconced in my window, giving me a perfect view as he came over the front lawn. Not striding or sauntering, nothing ostentatious or overtly anything; he just walked across the garden, into the house, and into my heart. My heart, I say.

Isn't he the most gorgeous creature you ever beheld. I noticed first the sun glinting on his hair, which is gorgeous. From his dimples, to his crooked smile, and his strong delicate fingers – I'm not making any sense but how can you expect me to at a time like this? His ears stick out a little perhaps, but his hair covers them, and it wouldn't do to be too perfect. That said, his eyes! Don't they just make you want to swoon and feed him ice cream all at once?

Yes, I'm being ridiculous – the ice cream would just go everywhere if you tried.

I am utterly infatuated.

Thank goodness I'm too shy to say more than a handful of words to him and give myself away. Please feel free to kick me if my eyes show the slightest sign of mooning, to save us all the embarrassment.

What am I doing? I should be saying all this to you. But you like him too, don't you, Rose. And I need one small space to myself, and it shall be the place in my head where Oscar has taken up residence.

He said he will come again tomorrow. Do you think he will? Of course he will, why would he say so if he wasn't. Still, do you think he will?

Yours apprehensively – nauseously even; I'm sick with dread and delight –

Rose

* * *

Dear Rose, 

He sings, he dances, he punts and swims; is there anything he cannot do and do to perfection? Rose, Rose, _Rose_. Rose and Oscar. Oscar and Rose. Actually our names have too many syllables to be said together, but I shall persevere and prevail.

He also rescues damsels in distress. Yes, it _is_ distressing to be struck in a tree. If you had ever experienced it yourself, you wouldn't laugh. I might have died.

I might have! I nearly choked to death trying to stutter out a thank you.

And I might yet die of happiness; it is a distinct possibility, further distinguishing itself every day.

Yours perfectly sincerely,

Rose

* * *

Deary me Rose, 

Turning green from the tip of your nose to the tops of your toes does not change the facts that my ankle is very sprained, we're the same size so there was no hope of you supporting me, and thus it was an absolute necessity that Oscar carried me all the way home. Just be thankful I didn't take advantage of the situation as you would have done. You know you would have. And it was very nice of him to wait on me hand and foot the rest of the afternoon. Ha.

But. Yesterday, he held your hand for two hours after steadying you along the bridge's railing. And every night when he leaves, you hug and kiss him while I sort of shake his hand then stare at the ground until he's gone.

If this were a game you'd absolutely be winning.

Yours dejected suddenly,

Rose

* * *

_Oscar is a character entirely of my own invention and not nearly as cool as Oscar Wilde, though that's certainly who he was named after. What the 'Wilde' in the title refers to may soon become apparent. And the same Rose writes every single letter, sorry for any confusion.  
_


	2. Rosemary

Dear Rose… 

mary,

I cannot honestly be expected to take this seriously. Too old to be called Rose! You're lucky Oscar has impeccable manners because he very much wanted to follow my example and laugh in your face. I could tell.

O! for yonder, fonder times when you didn't take yourself so seriously. Cast your mind back, if you will, to the occasion of our first meeting. Blearily I opened sleep clagged eyes, throwing off the mantle of unconsciousness to behold a countenance passing strange and hideously ugly! A face more like the exact copy of mine own. Thinking I was still entwined in Dream's false fancies, I reached out one hand to touch the mirror image. It did not draw away and thus the questing digits were near entrapped in the phantom's nostril. And did thou quoth: "I am too old to have fingers stuck up my nose"? Nay! You giggled so hard you almost fell off the bed.

So be warned Rose…mary; I _know_ you, inside out, through and through. And I won't stand for any of your nonsense, no matter how old you get or how young I remain.

Yours unpretentiously,

Rose

* * *

Dear Rosemary, 

No, don't worry – it's nothing.

Yours inanely,

Rose

* * *

Dear Rosemary, 

I shouldn't be jealous. I've had enough time to prepare. It's not as though it was a sudden, lost in the moment situation. There have been a lot of absent moments slowly building up.

And don't think you've been indiscreet. You've both been very good about it. But burgeoning attraction has many problems, not the least of which that it makes you sound like cultivated foodstuffs. I like that word. Foodstuffs – it's so vague and yet it's pomposity makes one believe that it is a very definite article, for fear of not seeing the Emperor's new clothes. I understood that, don't worry.

I count five broken branches and one disrupted bird's nest; that'll teach me to beat about bushes.

The scene: One lovelorn ridiculous adolescent huddles on the staircase, barely attempting to stay hidden as she spies on the couple before the fire rapt in mutual absorption. O dry words, such dull decrepit things. Or perhaps they seem so because I viewed the scene through a veil of tears.

Being heart-broken makes me quite poetic. I should do it more often.

I've run outside and hidden. Childish maybe, but I am what I am. I am what you aren't; you are what I want to be, if it means that Osc

I promised myself I wouldn't do this. I was going to act normally as if nothing were different though everything had changed. I have _got_ to stop polarising; it's not particularly interesting to read.

Did I treasure some small hope? Of course; I'm human. And there are moments, when you're away baking or doing your hair or something, and we'll be sitting at the dining room table playing one of our games and he'll smile at me, and I'll think

I can't be jealous. It's absurd; you're my, you know, whatever you are. And you and he make a lovely couple. There I said it. Oscar and Rosemary, Rosemary and Oscar, the couple. Very lovely. It's too bad there is no one else here to witness how very, _very_ lovely it all is.

Later, I'm never sure of the time but it is dark, still drizzling. The candlelight catches on the ivy outside my window, filigreeing its edges with liquid gold. The pages of this book are stiff but smooth and a pale, creamy yellow. The black ink from my pen glistens for five counts before drying and feathers only slightly as it is absorbed into the paper.

Two broken branches, a dozen bruised flowers and a nasty scratch on my right elbow.

Rosemary, there's something

I want

There once upon a time was a girl called Rose who once upon another time was a princess and a awfully silly one at that. Upon this particular time she was once again being silly (despite hoping perhaps she had learnt something since then) and had run outside to hide in her garden because the two people she loved most in all the world loved each other, which you'll agree is a very silly reason for the girl called Rose to cry her heart out. But she did so anyway as she ran to her favourite spot in the garden; a small stone bench next to the lily pond. The lily pond was looking particularly lovely that afternoon, swathed in a pall of rain. The lilies were blooming thick and white and smug as they always did, and the willow was bending its long limbs to sip the cool, green water of the pond and scattering its leafy debris all over the wooden bridge which the girl called Rose realised she would have to sweep again and soon, probably tomorrow. How long the girl called Rose stayed on the small stone bench – scribbling away dolorously in a dark blue book – she had no way of knowing. Long enough at any rate for one of the people she loved most in all the world to come looking for her.

"Wherefore art thou, Rose?" he called.

"'Wherefore' means 'why' not 'where', and well you know it so stop being silly, Oscar," replied Rose moistly (for though her tears had stopped the girl still felt distinctly water-logged).

"Now that I could never do, even for you, sweet wee Rose."

"Don't call me that," Rose scowled; her worst scowl which made her eyes disappear into mean little slits and her cheeks bulge unattractively, so she'd been told.

"Until this very moment I would have said there was not a thing in the world I would not do should you ask, sweet wee Rose, but this evening you have an uncanny knack for finding those oddities which I never shall cease. And I was using 'wherefore' correctly because I was asking, wherefore art thou in the garden getting soaked and letting your dinner grow stone-cold? Wherefore art thou crying, Rose?"

"I'm not."

"Wherefore _wast_ thou, then."

Rose stared stubbornly at the lily pond and after a long excruciating silence finally, begrudgingly stuttered, "Nothing. I mean– I sh– well, it's silly anyway!"

"Ah..." he said in that infuriatingly enlightened tone which Rose had long since realised did _not_ mean that he had derived any special insight from one's words, merely that he was giving the appearance of having done so; so as to draw one's innermost secret out of one's mouth before one could very well stop oneself.

Thus knowing, Rose continued to regard the lily pond with unwarranted interest. Even when one of her hands was picked up off her lap and held gently.

"We did not mean to hurt you."

"Don't be silly." She was proud to note that her voice held not a single trace of emotion other than confident assurance, and _definitely_ not hurt.

And there was another very long silence, not nearly as terrible as the first, in which the girl called Rose and one of the people she loved most in all the world just sat on the small stone bench overlooking the lilies and the willow tree slowly turning colours while the rain began to ease.

I finally turned to look at him and said straight-out, "Do you love her? I mean, really love her?" and he said very simply, "Yes". And what my face looked like then I have no idea but after watching me a few moments he said yes again, as if answering another question. Then he stood, and pulled me to my feet, and said we had better get back because dinner really was on the table and growing cold.

I'm confused, Rosemary. But not unhappy. I think.

Yours,

Rose


	3. Rosie

Dear Rosie, 

You may think that you are being helpful and o so amusing, throwing Oscar and I together, but I assure you it is not appreciated. You may have grown out of him, but I have not grown _in_ to him.

That didn't sound at all like I meant it to but you understand my point.

Yours (un)appreciatively, depending on further action,

Rose

* * *

Rosie,_dearest_,

I swear, say another word and I will stuff you with flour and set you alight.

I'm serious!

Yours irritably,

Rose

* * *

Dear Rosie,

Was it two cups of flour or three? Or three and a quarter?! I dare not ask again, you think me a big enough simpleton already. In all matters, not just those pertaining to rabbit pot pie. Two or three,_two or three_? This is useless! I don't see why you wouldn't just write your recipes down, then I might actually have a chance of remembering. Why do I need to learn how to cook anyway? O, this is ridiculous – I'm going to ask Oscar.

And take that look – which I _know_ you would be wearing if I was ever stupid enough to say those words aloud rather than write them down here – off your face. Indeed, I grow quite nonsensical: I don't care!

I shall in no way capitulate to your fancies. I shall not surrender! Particularly not to do something so pea-brain _stupidly_ embarrassing as fluttering my eyela

Ugh! It looks even stupider in black and white. How can you possibly think I would – as if I wouldn't pluck out my own eyeballs before I tried! And Oscar is perfectly capable of doing himself in if I ever looked coyly – Bah! I say. A hundred times, Bah!

Yours exasperatedly and proceeding-to-be-in-surreptitious-(but in no way romantic)-search-of-Oscar-ly,

Rose

* * *

Dear Rosie,

He's not coming back, is he? I knew it yesterday. He didn't come for the first time in, how many years? I lost count somewhen. I hardly remember a time without him though. Something stupendous has happened so long, long, _long_ ago.

It should be raining. It should be raining cats and dogs, and goats and elephants and two-toed sloths and hulking wildebeests and any other animal that contrive to fall out of the sky! If he is gone, the world should be bleak and desolate and wretched.

But it's not. A gentle shower has made crocuses and bluebells hopefully poke their heads above ground and that is all. My first Spring in this place and he is not here to enjoy it with us.

Do you think I'll ever see him again? Rosie, I'm so confused because I think I will. It's not like hoping, I _know_ it; I am absolutely certain despite all evidence to the contrary. And I'm not an idiot, I never have been – except that one time and it's hardly fair to throw _that _in my face. You have a good head on your shoulders, my father used to say and I am not given to flights of fancy that don't quickly crash back down to the hard, unforgiving earth that is reality.

So what is wrong with me? I should succumb to bleakest despair that Oscar won't return. But I haven't. There's something in me that's deep and still and ... waiting. Perfectly content to lie quiet until ... _what?!_ I don't know and I _don't _like it and I want it to go away.

The sky's finally being properly overcast with huge ugly black clouds and it sounds like we'll have our first thunderstorm today as well. You're yelling up the stairs for me to get some rosemary for whatever it is you're making. Give me a minute, would you? No, don't – the less time I have to think the better.

Your servant,

Rose


	4. Rose Left

_Still same Rose writing all letters, okay._

* * *

Dear Rose, 

In deference to your great age I am writing this down instead of telling you because you've been looking quite frail recently and I wouldn't want to shock your old bones.

I have checked the dictionary and you definitely made up 'nystagmus' where as:

"Conistorted: (adj.) having the appearance of being contorted and/or distorted."

Let's go back and read that again, shall we? Why yes, it _does_ seem to be a real word, doesn't it? But perhaps we should check one more time? Still there I'm afraid, as plain as the nose on my face. Which, if I may say so, is quite a nice nose; small and regularly shaped, not at all – hmm, how to put it? – not at all conistorted.

And what's that? As it _is _a real word, I should have won last night? Well, yes, I suppose so, yes. But as you win our games so rarely I wouldn't begrudge you a victory, even a false one. A marvel of generosity? Really, love, that's too kind. And very true. Which is why I'm allowing you to go on believing that you won. No, no! I _insist_. Because your continuing happiness is important to me.

Yours earnestly,

Rose

* * *

Dear Rose, 

Do you miss him sometimes?

I was thinking, for tomorrow, a picnic. But I'm not sure you could manage it, and if I say anything you will say of course you can, but can you?

Down by the pond, I think, where we can sit and delight in the lilies and the willow trees and the little blue-trimmed white boat as it bobs happily at its mooring. You will have to make the picnic, obviously, but then I demand that you sit quietly and restoringly while I – I'm not sure what. Balance along the bridge railing or read _From the Trees_ to you or I could climb a tree because I'm much better at it now and probably won't get stuck.

I hope I haven't made it too blindingly obvious what this letter is about. I miss him sometimes. Often.

Yours reminiscently,

Rose

* * *

Rose, 

You died. You _left_ me. And you didn't teach me how to make raspberry tarts so how will anyone ever

* * *

Dear Rose, 

Does it make more or less sense that I write to you now? Quite the conundrum indeed. And quite beyond me. You'll have to figure it out and tell me what you come up with. Please.

I don't know how long I waited for your next breath. The last one wasn't any different from the ones before it, so it can't have been

Breathing is like the waves and if they get shallower, quieter they'll come back and break again. Sea tides don't change that easily. And then I went to make a cup of tea because if I made it right of course you would come back. You love tea. Loved. Love.

But when I came back, you'd been stolen. I walked for two days and two nights trying to find you or the thieves. You once said there was nobody else here, but Rose _there's nobody else here_. There isn't another house or a road or any washing lines, there isn't a single rock or plant not hewn by nature. I don't think there are even any animals. How could I not have noticed? Was it always so quiet? It's so quiet.

Excepting my heart. My heart, I say, that beats stupidly loud for something that's broken. Only

Death, where is thy sting? I swear it doesn't hurt as much today as it did yesterday but I don't want to mend, I don't want to forget. Please, where are you?

Tears with the breadth and depth of oceans well in my eyes and spill down my cheeks. They stain my hands, they will not dry.

I

I just

Please, Rose; I just

Come back. I'll let you win every game and I won't beg you to make tarts unless you want to and I'll learn how to cook, I_ promise_ I'll try, and I'll fill your room with fresh flowers and do all the chores and sweep the tower from top to bottom and never complain and

Now I have no one – how DARE you leave me


	5. A Brief Interlude

The canopy of leaves above let sunlight dribble through its green fingers to splatter the forest floor below and the horse and rider upon it. The rider was having difficulty keeping his mount from bounding after the hunt as he searched the clearing for something. He turned his head quickly and there it was again – the faintest trace of roses on the air. 

"Oscar, where'd you go?"

"_Oscar! Oscar, where are you?"_

_His brother, older by two years, Jack, or His Royal Highness John IV if you wanted to be technical. The eight-year-old hiding behind a bush at the south end of the Rose Garden didn't. So: Jack, brother and bully._

"_Listen, you little pipsqueak, if you don't come out in five seconds I will break–"_

"_Your Highness, is that any way for the heir of the realm to speak?" Their tutor, Dr – whatsisname, hadn't thought of him in years – tall, thin, long nose but a nice enough man._

"_Oscar, they're threatening to __remove me from the succession if you don't come back. And you can forget about it if you think I'm going to search the entire grounds for you! They won't even let the servants help me._

"_I'll say sorry! I won't mean it but I'll say it if it'll make you feel better. _

"_Mother's worried sick and Father's furious – at me, not you. You're little Prince Perfect even though you have stupid dreams and a sword arm like Sibyl's, not to mention–"_

"_Your Highness, if you c__ould keep a civil tongue in your head." Hallward__ – that was it._

"_O Royal Brother Mine!" Jack would be th__rowing himself down on one knee, __sawing his arms through the air, __beating at his breast like the worst sort of melodrama hero. "Dearest Friend since your Timely Birth, which brought more Beauty into the World than Any Mortal's yet! On Whom the Sole Hope for this Fair Kingdom rests, so it would seem from the Hell-Raising Furore and Clamour at your Unfortunate Disappearance. Sibling of my Soul, wherefore bloody well are you__?!"_

"'_Wherefore' means 'why' not 'where__'," muttered the boy behind the bush._

_How had he known that when he was only eight years old?_

"Come on, you're getting left behind. What's there to scowl at on a day like this?"

"What? I mean, excuse me?" blinked Oscar.

"The day is young, the sun bright, the horses beneath us valiant creatures and our very own Ceryneian Hind awaits us yonder." Jack reined in and whacked him gently but firmly upside of the head. "Seriously, Oscar; come back to the land of the living and let's go."

Oscar looked around the clearing again, distracted. "Do you remember the day you lost me in the garden for five hours?

"First time or second?"

"First."

"Yeah," grinned Jack. "Those weird dreams–"

"They weren't dreams."

"All alone with two girls who are desperately in love with you? You're right, doesn't sound like a dream at all."

"I wasn't dreaming! I was ... remembering." It had taken Oscar a long time to come to that word but it was the only one that fit. "If you'd paid attention during natural philosophy–" he checked over his right shoulder then his left, twisting so far he almost fell out of his saddle, "–dreams are an amalgamation of daily experience – illustrative not creative – and I have never seen that girl in this life, before or since. So she's from ... some ... other life."

Jack stared at a tuft of hair between his horse's ears for a moment, rubbed at his left eye, then glanced up at his brother from beneath a furrowed brow.

"I have got to get married," he announced. "I've got to get married and have children because I _will not_ have a lunatic as next in line to the throne. I'm sorry, I just won't."

"Shuddup. Besides you're only twenty-four; nothing's going to happen to you."

"And nothing ever will if we don't catch up to the hunt. We're after the white hind, remember? The biggest chase of our lives so no more joking around. I can hardly hear the hounds, we've gotta catch up. Oscar. Get that look out of your eyes, wake up.We'll put this conversation down to the wood working its witchy ways on you and we'll laugh about it tonight, right? Come on."

His brother led the way, his horse nimbly jumping a fallen log, and Oscar reluctantly followed. Then a flash out the corner of his eye. Oscar yanked his horse to a halt so fast it squealed.

"There, in there – you must have seen it!" He pointed wildly into the undergrowth. "A tower and a castle and roses. I _knew_ I wasn't crazy."

Jack grabbed his reins, holding him still. "Oscar," said Jack slowly. "I'm only going to say this once: I'm your brother and I love you." His tone froze over. "But that's enough fairy tales for today. Forget it.

"Now let's go."


	6. Rose Alone

Dear Rose, 

Please forgive me for my last words and subsequent neglect. There are no excuses for hating you because you died – which you could hardly help – so I offer none. And nursing that grudge for years, for no more reason than stubborn pig-headedness, shows a childishness I am ashamed of.

I have grown up, you see. I am astonished, astounded, emotionally dumbfounded to discover so. Though if I think hard enough I find I had noticed a change, but I thought it was merely the maturing effect of living completely alone.

I went out on the pond today. I have not tried to since Oscar took us, years and years ago. Punting is a lot harder than he made it seem – I managed to capsize myself. Twice. I wish you had been there to laugh at me. It is utterly tragic to laugh by oneself, so I try not to do it very often.

Anyway, I floundered about in the water for a while until I realised that actually I liked standing in water; the curiousness of one's skirts twisting about like eels, perfectly weightless except that you _know_ when you exit the water they shall drag like a millstone. I stood long enough in the pond that all the ripples dispersed, restoring its mirror-still complexion, and in the face of the water I saw my own for the first time in I know not how long. I estimate that were my disposition as dramatic as your own I would now be demanding to be called Rosemary. If, of course, there was anyone here to demand it of.

I wonder sometimes at the blindness of my younger self. When you and Oscar were here I noticed nothing amiss in this world, but now its strangeness confounds me.

Take for example the pantry. It is always well-stocked despite that I never lift a finger to keep it so. (Actually, once I did grow a bean stalk with spectacular results. There is no one living above the clouds either.) The meat and vegetables are replaced every day, the flour and starch and things once week as soon as the last ray of sun is sucked from the kitchen. I spent a day experimenting, counting to sixty then opening the pantry door to see if the faces I had drawn on every item within had disappeared (signaling their replacement). I know that if you attempt to hold the door open so that the pantry cannot change in private the wood will groan, the hinges will shriek and then the door will slam shut of its own accord, dragging you with it if you were stupid enough to not let go the handle.

Also, if I forget to eat the pantry will make my favourite foods, fully prepared not just the ingredients, to tempt me. Once it made raspberry tarts and I had to run away so that is how I know I cannot starve in this place. I can wander for days and have my stomach feel as if it is trying to eat itself, but sooner or later I will feel completely refreshed though I have not eaten or drunk, nor slept. I cannot kill myself; this place will not allow it.

Another curious thing – while I am on the subject of curiosities – though so many rooms in the tower are lined with books, the greater number of them are blank; the titles on the spines are nonsense made of random letters. I have moved all the un-blank books into my room; they amass to every book I had ever read, and all the ones Oscar read aloud to us on long evenings. And there is one called_ Truth: an Ageless Philosophy and Continual Delight_ which I distinctly remember Oscar sitting at the kitchen table reading. He would frown sometimes or nod and once he laughed, which kept me running round the table from where I was sitting to read over his shoulder. Though most of the book is blank, pages 74-6, 121 and 122, 157-62, 230, 499, and 558 to end, are not (230 is an engraving of a comparative bisection of an apple and a quince; I can find no explanation for it).

What else have I discovered? O, a thousand little things; each less interesting than the last. This exercise is not helping as I though it might.

It was winter for a long time after you death. Some days it would blizzard and others the sun would shine, but weakly, barely reaching the iron-hard earth. Always it was bitterly cold. I rarely left my bed and I cannot tell you what I found to do when I did. Except tobogganing – I never ever went tobogganing though the cupboard beside the front door helpfully provided the means to do so.

Is it just me or have I become incredibly boring in my advanced age? I am sure my letters used to be more interesting. I feel boring, through and through – banausic and lethargic and apathetic. Maybe if you came

No. That's enough of that.

And that's enough of this. My love to you if you are able to receive it.

Yours –ha!– faithfully,

Rose


	7. A Neat Coda of Some Sort

Dear loveliest Rose,

A short note; and the last I think. I am almost sure I understand now.

I must tell you, I woke up again. Finally. And would you _believe_ the first thing I said? Of course you would and laugh yourself right off the bed this time, I have no doubt.

– Bah! another one gone. None of the pens here will work longer than five words; their ink dried up decades ago. It is _most_ frustrating. Sorry, should not have interrupted, my head is whirling, please continue –

I said, in that exquisite moment of romantic perfectness: "O good, I thought it would be you."

I am still cringing. Why did you get all the quick wits and romantic aptitude while I just have a foot the perfect size for my mouth? Perhaps I _should_ have practised batting my eyelashes. If you ever tell anyone I wrote that I will – I do not know exactly what, something terribly unpleasant at any rate.

But he kissed me again, and called me his own sweet Rose, so perhaps it wasn't so bad.

I am trying to think of something to say; an ending, a neat coda of some sort, but I am too absolutely, completely happy to manage anything so ordinary as thought.

My only wish is that I could see you again. But I think I will. Every day, in fact, perhaps, I think. O, I truly, _truly _can't; not now! So I will finish.

Farewell, love, and see you soon,

Wish me luck,

Rose

* * *

_So, _The Picture of Dorian Grey_ it most certainly is not, but there is a glimmering of similarity which managed to justify the title to my mind. If you have any questions at all__ ask them and I shall be more than happy to answer in as long-winded a way as possible._


End file.
